Four video games! Four video games! One of the various, many causes it’s terrific that we’ll haven't any sweeps in any of the Division Series — after having three of them within the Wild Card Series — is that it units up an excellent day like Wednesday, when now we have 4 baseball video games. It’s the ultimate time we’ll have that many all season. Savor it.
Two of those are pivotal Game 3s, however the different two have even greater stakes: For one group, it’s a possible clinch. For the opposite? It’s a win-or-go-home state of affairs. This is nearly as good as baseball will get, of us.
Here’s the highest storyline for every of Wednesday’s Division Series video games.
What will the Guardians get out of Cobb?
It has been a tricky 12 months for Cobb, who simply turned 37 on Monday. A 2023 All-Star with the Giants, he has been ravaged by accidents this 12 months, from hip surgical procedure to a nerve subject in his proper shoulder to a blister to a break up fingernail to one other blister. He has made solely three begins all season, but it surely needs to be mentioned: They’ve been good begins. The finest was the final one he made, on Sept. 1, when he threw six stellar innings (two hits, one unearned run, six Okay’s) in a 6-1 win over the Pirates.
But you may notice from the date there: It’s been some time since that recreation, because of the aforementioned fingernail and blister points. (It’s additionally been some time since Cobb appeared within the postseason – 11 years, to be actual.)
The Tigers are deploying the “pitching chaos” technique they've been leaning on in video games not began by Tarik Skubal. But if Cobb – who, once more, has not pitched in additional than a month – isn’t able to go and give the Guardians some actual innings, they'll basically be making an attempt some “pitching chaos” of their very own.
Is this actually going to be it for the Phillies?
This is meant to be the 12 months for a Phillies group that has been in full-on, win-now mode. They reached the World Series two years in the past however misplaced to the Astros; final 12 months, they got here inside one recreation of returning to the Fall Classic earlier than a surprising exit in opposition to the D-backs within the NLCS. That put a lot of emphasis on 2024 for this veteran group that's nonetheless looking out for that ring.
That’s particularly the case for Bryce Harper, the two-time MVP Award winner, probably future Hall of Famer and signature MLB star, who famously left the Nationals the 12 months earlier than they received their World Series in 2019. Every main star on this group, from Harper to Kyle Schwarber to Trea Turner to Nick Castellanos to Zack Wheeler to Aaron Nola to even Carlos Estévez is at the least 31 years outdated. As your again may need informed you once you received away from bed this morning, age is undefeated.
The 2024 Phillies had the franchise’s finest report since 2011 and have been prepping themselves for the postseason since Spring Training. They now are one recreation — in entrance of what's going to be a completely bonkers Citi Field crowd — from all of it vanishing, identical to that.
Will the superstars ever get going?
It was virtually a reduction when, within the eighth inning of Game 2, Aaron Judge lastly received a base hit. Sure, it was an infield single, however man, he'll take it. Judge, who, once more, might have simply had one of the best season on the plate by a right-handed hitter in baseball historical past, had been 0-for-6 within the sequence (with two walks and 4 strikeouts) earlier than that at-bat, and his struggles have gotten an unlucky postseason motif. In his final 16 postseason video games, he’s 9-for-63 (.143) with three homers and 24 strikeouts. Those should not the form of numbers New York City followers love!
In the opposite dugout, Bobby Witt Jr. — Judge’s solely cheap competitor for the AL MVP Award — has in some way gone 0-for-10 for with 4 strikeouts within the two ALDS video games. That’s truly the primary time he has gone hitless in two straight video games since Aug. 29-30. (He solely had two 0-for-5 video games all season lengthy.) This has been a riveting sequence already regardless of the 2 finest gamers within the American League not doing a lot of something. Imagine what it’ll seem like once they get up.
Déjà vu for the Dodgers?
The Dodgers have received the National League West in 11 out of the previous 12 seasons. They are one of many best-run organizations in all of sports activities. They have three supernova MVPs atop their lineup, together with Shohei Ohtani, who’s so clearly excited to lastly be within the playoffs he’s almost leaping out of his spikes.
But now they discover themselves in the very same place as previously two seasons: In hazard of getting knocked out of the NLDS by a division rival. Last 12 months, it was the D-backs. In 2022, it was the Padres, who bounced again from a Game 1 loss to take three straight video games, clinching in Game 4 in San Diego. That roadmap now appears eerily acquainted, and the worst half about this sequence is that, all informed, Game 3 didn’t go so badly for Los Angeles. Walker Buehler gutted by 5 innings — giving up runs in solely a kind of — and the three relievers who adopted him have been good. Mookie Betts homered and Teoscar Hernández walloped a grand slam to place 5 runs on Padres starter Michael King.
But there have been acquainted October issues for the Dodgers, too. Shaky protection contributed to the Padres placing up a six-spot within the second inning, and after Hernández’s slam, the membership received just one extra hit the remainder of the sport — a very horrible time for the bats to abruptly go ice chilly. Now, if the Dodgers need their season to final to Friday, they should spackle collectively their pitching workers, take care of accidents to first baseman Freddie Freeman and shortstop Miguel Rojas, and overcome a Petco Park crowd that I’m fairly certain may be heard from area. The Dodgers are again right here. Again. It appears like a good harder hill for them to climb than the final two years … and we noticed the way it turned out then.
